There are some very real, very powerful joys that come from being a parent. Watching your baby take their first shaky steps, watching them ride a bike, and listening to their observations about life are some of the most joyful parts of being a parent. As our children get older, their assignments in school become more challenging. No longer are they supposed to "color three chickens," but they are getting into algebra with fractions, cellular biology, and hairy word problems involving two trains, one leaving Chicago at…. Well, you get the point…
This week Riley was given an assignment to write a short story. It had to be about Halloween and it had to use some rather difficult vocabulary words. I fancy myself rather good at vocabulary, but there was one word I had never heard of before, and one word I had the wrong (but very very close) definition for. (To be honest, I think 99% of the people who use the word, use it incorrectly, after looking it up in Webster's…) If you want to play a game, post what you think, before you read the story, the definition of "Ambivalent" is in the comments. Don't cheat and look it up, just write what you think it means.
Well, Riley wrote his story, used all his vocabulary words, and reading it brought Laura and I to laugh until we almost cried. It was honest, simple, and used words that I bet most folks have never heard of. Good job Riley. I hope others find it as wonderful to read and your mom and I did!
The vocabulary words have a link to the definition just in case you need it.
Halloween Story
By Riley Neal
Once upon a time there were four kids who were all friends. Their names were Josh, Dylan, Emily and Lyndsie. Josh was a belligerent fellow; he was 5ft. 1in. and always bouncing off the walls. Dylan was a cordial boy; he was very tall and skinny, 6ft. to be exact. Now Emily was ambivalent. She could never make up her mind about something; “I could go do this but this might happen.” Lyndsie was abstruse and altruistic; nobody really understood what she meant. She always had a metaphor or simile that never correlated with the subject they were talking about.
These kids lived downtown in an archaic and austere neighborhood so they always got together in their fort by an abandoned factory. I guess you could call this neighborhood daunting because of being antiquated. Living downtown means a lot of people and that leads to a lot of candy on Halloween. They lived in an arid place but just barely arable for wheat. Well anyways, they waited for what seemed forever until Halloween came around the next year.
This year was different than all the other years. This year Josh broke his leg one week before Halloween. The cast adhered right to the gauze. The cast was like a large conflagration, flaring red. He had to use a wheelchair for Halloween! This ruined the whole group’s plans. They were going to go from house to house to house, but now they couldn’t. Josh told them to go without him, but they said that if one person’s not going, nobody’s going. So they corroborated this ingenious plan to push him around in his wheelchair and he could be an old man. Josh would wear long jeans and get a white wig and get bags full of candy. In the end, Josh got three times as much candy as the other three and they all had a happy Halloween.
This might not have been the kind of Halloween story you were expecting. Nobody got scared, nobody died and nobody was condemned. It was just a happy Halloween. Josh, Dylan, Emily, and Lyndsie had one of the best times of their lives.
By Riley Neal
Once upon a time there were four kids who were all friends. Their names were Josh, Dylan, Emily and Lyndsie. Josh was a belligerent fellow; he was 5ft. 1in. and always bouncing off the walls. Dylan was a cordial boy; he was very tall and skinny, 6ft. to be exact. Now Emily was ambivalent. She could never make up her mind about something; “I could go do this but this might happen.” Lyndsie was abstruse and altruistic; nobody really understood what she meant. She always had a metaphor or simile that never correlated with the subject they were talking about.
These kids lived downtown in an archaic and austere neighborhood so they always got together in their fort by an abandoned factory. I guess you could call this neighborhood daunting because of being antiquated. Living downtown means a lot of people and that leads to a lot of candy on Halloween. They lived in an arid place but just barely arable for wheat. Well anyways, they waited for what seemed forever until Halloween came around the next year.
This year was different than all the other years. This year Josh broke his leg one week before Halloween. The cast adhered right to the gauze. The cast was like a large conflagration, flaring red. He had to use a wheelchair for Halloween! This ruined the whole group’s plans. They were going to go from house to house to house, but now they couldn’t. Josh told them to go without him, but they said that if one person’s not going, nobody’s going. So they corroborated this ingenious plan to push him around in his wheelchair and he could be an old man. Josh would wear long jeans and get a white wig and get bags full of candy. In the end, Josh got three times as much candy as the other three and they all had a happy Halloween.
This might not have been the kind of Halloween story you were expecting. Nobody got scared, nobody died and nobody was condemned. It was just a happy Halloween. Josh, Dylan, Emily, and Lyndsie had one of the best times of their lives.
1 comment:
Well done, Riley! I'm extremely impressed with his linguistical talents and prodigious use of the English language.
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